Off the road

Jack Hitt

In this irreverent, ruminative adventure, Jack Hitt sets out to walk the 500 miles along the pilgrimage route from France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Off the Road charts the serendipitous encounters of another American innocent abroad, only this one submits to the rigorous traditions of Europe's oldest form of packaged tour. The result is a comic yet sympathetic attempt to understand the vanishing role of religion in modern life. Off the Road is an unforgettable tour of the sites that people believe God once touched: the strange fortress said to contain the real secret Adam learned when he bit the apple; the miraculous chickens of the fourteenth century whose descendants still dance in the church of Santo Domingo; the sites associated with the murderous monks known as the Knights Templar; and the places housing relics ranging from a vial of the Virgin Mary's milk to a sheet of...

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